Ralph did not stand before this paralyzing spectacle for more than a minute. Motionless, speechless, he studied it absentmindedly, and mechanically gathered in all the traces and evidence of the work that had been done some hours before; he marked the prints of a woman’s heel; but he refused to draw from them the only logical conclusion. He walked away from it, lit a cigarette and sat down on the bank of the dyke on the edge of the river.
He did not wish to think. The defeat, and above all the fashion in which it had been inflicted on him, was too painful for him to suffer himself to study its causes and effects. At such moments one can only strive to retain one’s coolness. But, in spite of everything, the events of the preceding afternoon and evening forced themselves on his attention. Whether he wished it, or not, the actions of Josephine Balsamo unfolded themselves before his mind. He saw her striving firmly against that nervous attack and recovering all the energy necessary at such a juncture. Rest when the hour of destiny had struck? Not she! Had he rested? And Beaumagnan, wounded as he was, had he allowed himself the slightest respite? No! And Josephine Balsamo would never make such a mistake. Before nightfall she had reached the meadow with her agents; and then in the daylight and later by the light of lanterns, she had directed their work. And when he, Ralph, had divined her presence behind the curtained window of her cabin, she was not making ready for the final expedition; she had returned from it, once more victorious because she never allowed mischances, futile hesitation, or superfluous scruples to prove an obstacle between her and the immediate execution of her designs.
For more than twenty minutes, letting himself relax from his fatigue in the warmth of the sun which rose above the hills on the opposite bank, Ralph considered the bitter reality into which had sunk his dreams of domination. He must indeed have been deeply absorbed in those bitter reflections not to hear the noise of a carriage which stopped in the road and see the three men who got out of it, climb over the fence and cross the meadow till the very moment at which one of them, on reaching the mound, uttered a cry of anguish.
It was Beaumagnan; his two friends were supporting him.
If the disappointment of Ralph was deep, what must have been the despair of a man who had staked all his life on the mysterious treasure! Livid, with starting eyes, the bandage which ran across his shoulder oozing blood, he gazed stupidly, as at the most horrible of spectacles, at the spot on which the miraculous stone had been violated. One would have said that the world was falling in ruins about his feet and that he was gazing into a gulf of terror and horror.
Ralph came forward and murmured: “Her work.”
Beaumagnan did not answer him. There was no doubt whatever that it was her work. Must it not be that the image of that woman mingled with everything disastrous and overwhelming, with every cataclysm charged with infernal suffering?
Had he any need, like his companions, to leap into the hole and ransack its chaos for some forgotten scrap of the treasure? No! After the passage of the sorceress there was nothing but dust and ashes. She was the great scourge which devastates and slays. She was the very incarnation of the Principle of Evil. She was nothingness and death!
He drew himself to his full height, always theatrical and romantic in his most natural attitudes, gazed round him with dolorous eyes, then, of a sudden, crossed himself, and drove into his breast the blade of a dagger—of the dagger which belonged to Josephine Balsamo.
The action was so sudden and so unexpected that no one could have prevented it. Before his friends and Ralph had even grasped what he had done, Beaumagnan tumbled into the hole among the débris of what had been the strongbox of the monks.
His friends sprang to him.
He was still breathing and he muttered: “A priest—a priest.”
De Bennetot hurried away. Some peasants passed. He questioned them and sprang into the carriage.
On his knees beside his chief, Godfrey d’Etigues was praying and striking his breast. Doubtless Beaumagnan had revealed to him that Josephine Balsamo was still alive and knew all his crimes. The suicide of his chief on the top of that revelation had shattered his mind. His face was convulsed with terror.
Ralph bent down over Beaumagnan and in slow and measured accents said: “I swear to you that I will find her. I swear to you that I will take the treasure from her.”
Love and hate still persisted in the heart of the dying man. Such words alone could prolong his existence for a few fleeting minutes. At the hour of his agony, in the shattering of all his dreams, he clung desperately to every chance of reprisal and vengeance.
His eyes summoned Ralph, who bent down lower and heard him mutter: “Clarice—Clarice d’Etigues—you must marry her. Listen—Clarice is not the daughter of the Baron—he confessed it to me—she is the daughter of another woman he loved.”
Ralph said solemnly: “I swear to you I will marry her—I swear it.”
“Godfrey!” said Beaumagnan.
The Baron went on praying. Ralph laid a hand on his shoulder and made him bend down to catch Beaumagnan’s faint utterance.
“Clarice is to marry d’Andresy. I wish it.”
“Yes, yes,” said the Baron, incapable of resistance.
“Swear it.”
“I swear it.”
“By your eternal salvation?”
“By my eternal salvation.”
“You will give him your money that he may avenge us—all the wealth you have stolen. Swear it!” said Beaumagnan.
“By the eternal salvation,” said the Baron.
“He knows all your crimes. He has proofs of them,” Beaumagnan continued. “If you do not obey me,
